Microsoft PDC 2010 highlights

There were a lot of announcements at the MS Professional Developer’s Conference yesterday. Some interesting facts from PDC from Twitter & a live blog -
  • 10 million downloads for IE9 beta - Ballmer .. Biggest beta ever.
  • 500,000 downloads of the #WP7 dev tools already - @scottgu 
  • #azure has more than 200,000 subscriptions to date 
  • Over 1000 apps and games already uploaded to the marketplace.
  • DataMart is Windows Azure MarketPlace
  • The WP7 profiling tools run in the Express edition too
  • HTML5 will be 'lingua franca' for Web apps, Ballmer says
  • IE9 Platform Preview 6 is now available for download.
  • Muglia: "We'll make Java a first-class citizen in the cloud. We will make PHP run great on Azure - or Ruby."
  • Pixar is using Windows Azure.
  • Channel 9 runs on Azure
  • Why did Pixar choose Azure? Scalability: render farm for rent is not a new idea, but in the cloud, you can now scale these up as you need them. Sustainability: We need to ensure that a solution we put in place will be there for a long time. It just works.
  • Small instance of #Azure role should help with the lightweight apps like hosting blogs
  • Recorded sessions from PDC 2009 videos. The latest ones may also come up. The recorded sessions from PDC 2010 are also available. (10/Nov)
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Hotmail lets you download attachments as a zip file

Did you know, you can download attachments faster in Hotmail as it packs individual files into a single zip?


If the attachments are images, there is an option to view them as a slideshow without having to download those images locally. The slideshow runs using a Silverlight viewer that can also present the images in a full-screen format. Pretty cool!

In its last make-over, Hotmail also introduced the Conversation threading feature which can be toggled. This flexibility also probably prompted Gmail to have the facility of switching views.
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Why YQL?

Why YQL?

Christian Heilmann who is quitting his job as a full-time developer evangelist at Yahoo has made available a demo chapter from a prospective book on YQL.

In case, you haven't heard of YQL, its "a technology that turns the web into a database and allows you to mix and match and filter before writing your first line of code. It also allows you to release an API without any infrastructure, knowledge of authentication and access control. In essence you can use Yahoo’s server infrastructure and processing power to unleash the awesome of the web into your products or the awesome of your data on the web."

Chris has to be one hard-core evangelist because he has published scores of presentations on SlideShare, numerous tutorials & even a handbook on Developer Evangelism

Also see:
Screen scrape with jQuery, AJAX, JSONP & YQL
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Windows 7 is 1 year old, Windows platform soon to be 25

Windows 7 is 1 year old, Windows platform soon to be 25

Having sold 240 million copies so far, Windows 7 is Microsoft's fastest selling OS. The Windows platform will be completing 25 years next month. To look back at Windows history, check the Windows 1.0 artifacts that Ray Ozzie has shared at docs.com, which now provides “browser-based PDF reading” through a Silverlight-based PDF viewer.

In other OS news, Google is readying its Chrome OS for the fourth quarter of 2010. Some points from the Chromium OS FAQ -
Google Chrome OS is to Chromium OS what Google Chrome browser is to Chromium. Chromium OS is the open source project, used primarily by developers, with code that is available for anyone to checkout, modify and build their own version with.

Google Chrome OS is not a conventional operating system that you can download or buy on a disc and install. As a consumer, the way you will get Google Chrome OS is by buying a netbook that has Google Chrome OS installed by the OEM.

...we are asking our hardware partners for Google Chrome OS to use solid state drives (SSDs) rather than hard disk drives (HDDs), for performance and reliability reasons.

Google Chrome OS is a web-centric system, so all applications are web applications

..Chromium OS is open source, and it's Linux.

The Chrome OS UI is under development but some preliminary designs are available

Also see:
The History of Microsoft
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Adding new Search Provider easiest with Opera

If you search for items frequently on popular sites (like Amazon), it may be easier to use that site's native search right from the browser. All popular browsers allow adding new Search Providers to the search box but it is fastest to do this in Opera, followed by Chrome.

IE8 & Firefox require an add-on to be installed for each search provider which internally uses a standard XML-based OpenSearch Description File. In contrast, Opera lets you quickly configure a search provider yourself for any any site that provides it. Let's see how to search StackOverflow, the programming Q & A site, right from the Opera browser.

1. Go to Tools > Preferences & select the Search tab in the dialog box that opens up. It contains a list of search providers like Google that are already added by default.

2. Click on the Add button & fill in these values -
Name: Stack Overflow
Keyword: so
Address: http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=%s

3. Click on the OK button to save these settings & after that you will notice Stack Overflow as a search engine option for the search box.


Instead of using the search box, you can also search from the address bar by typing the keyword so followed by your search query to look up StackOverlow specifically. Example  - so jquery

If you wish to exclude certain sites from being included in the results displayed by popular search engines like Bing & Google, you can edit search settings to restrict sites using the site: operator. For example, to exclude results from the domain example.com when you search Google from the Opera search box, edit the address in the Search preference for this search engine to look something this  -
 http://www.google.com/search?q=%s+-site:example.com
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Search from browser address bar in IE, Firefox, Opera

Search from browser address bar in IE, Firefox, Opera

I found out by accident that its not just Chrome that has the combined search and address bar (Omnibox) feature - the address bar in IE8, Firefox 3.0 & Opera 9.6 (the version numbers are the ones I've tested on) can also double up as a search box. You can type your search term in the address bar of any of these browsers and press the Enter key to see results from your default search engine. This doesn't work in Safari (version 4.0 on Windows) though.

Its good to see browser features getting consistent across the board.

Also see:
Keyboard shortcuts common to Firefox & IE8
View math calculation results directly in Firefox Search bar
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Impact of online reputation on job recruitments

Did you know, while only 7% of U.S. consumers surveyed believed information about them online affected their job search, 70% of responding recruiters and HR professionals have rejected candidates based on information they found online. 

86% of human resources professionals surveyed stated that a positive online reputation influences hiring. (Microsoft Online Reputation Research, 2010)

A Microsoft Privacy & Safety blog post offers these tips for individuals to protect their online reputations:
  • Monitor your reputation by searching for information about yourself on the Internet.
  • Apply appropriate privacy settings on social networking services.
  • Enhance your reputation by posting positive information in your online profiles.
  • Defend your reputation by correcting online information about yourself that is untrue.
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When to use Sleep & Hibernate

When to use Sleep & Hibernate

Sleep & Hibernate are power-saving options in operating systems like Windows Vista & 7.

Sleep preserves whatever you were doing in memory while Hibernate writes your settings and the content of memory to the hard disk (to a hidden system file called Hiberfil.sys located in the root folder of the drive where the operating system is installed) and then completely powers down the system. The size of the Hiberfil.sys file is approximately equal to how much random access memory (RAM) is installed on the computer.

Hibernation is more power saving than Sleep but waking from a state of Hibernation takes longer than waking from Sleep.

Use the  sleep mode  you won’t be using the computer for a short time and the Hibernate mode when you are not going to use the computer for more than several hours.

To disable Hibernation, type powercfg.exe /hibernate off at the command prompt.
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Google Labs Script Converter Bookmarklet

Google Labs Script Converter Bookmarklet

Script Converter is a Google Labs product that allows the user to read a web page in a script of their choice (currently 11 Indian languages, English, Greek, Nepali, Persian, Russian, Serbian are supported). For example, if the user can understand spoken Tamil but cannot read the script, they will be able to view Tamil web pages in English (Roman) script or one of the other supported languages.

The online tool does not translate any content but transforms the words on the page to its phonetic equivalent in the desired script. It also supports the conversion from non-Unicode encodings to Unicode, so that users can view pages without installing the custom font otherwise needed.

Any web-based service that takes its required parameters as a querystring is a good candidate for a bookmarklet. Here's the code for my attempt at building a bookmarklet for Google Labs Script Converter -
javascript:(function()
{
window.location.href='http://scriptconv.googlelabs.com/frame?sln=xx&tln=en&url='
+encodeURI(window.location.href);
})()

The value "xx" for sln indicates Script Converter will auto-detect the language on the web page that it has to transform while tln=en means the content will be shown in English.

You can deploy this bookmarklet yourself (after removing the newline characters) or drag the link below to your Bookmarks toolbar (or whatever it is called in your favorite browser)  -
>> Transliterate with Script Converter <<

To test this bookmarklet, you can open the BBC Hindi home page & then click on the above bookmarklet that you've added to view Hindi content in English.

Also see:
The Joy of Bookmarklets
How to read an online PDF file without installing a PDF Reader
HOW to continuously refresh any web-page in IE & Firefox
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Can NoSQL replace SQL Server?

Can NoSQL replace SQL Server?

Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and Rackspace are notable sites using various types of NoSQL implementations.

Michael Otey explains why NoSQL isn’t really a viable replacement for SQL Server -
The term “NoSQL” was coined back in 1998, and it originally stood for Not Only SQL. So the name NoSQL is a bit of a misnomer.

NoSQL databases aren’t relational at all.

Today’s NoSQL databases are distributed data stores that are designed for very large-scale data access requirements. Probably the most popular NoSQL database is the Cassandra open source project. Cassandra began as Facebook’s proprietary database, but Facebook released it as open source in 2008.

Other NoSQL implementations include Google BigTable, Apache Hadoop, MapReduce, MemcacheDB, and Voldemort.

...though NoSQL databases are designed for performance and scalability, they aren’t designed to support the atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability (ACID) properties that are standard in relational databases such as SQL Server....each different NoSQL implementation uses a proprietary data access mechanism.

SQL Server DBAs don’t need to fear that NoSQL represents some new technology wave that will sweep away relational databases like SQL Server. Instead NoSQL is just another tool in the application developer’s toolbox.

NoSQL implementations solve a data storage problem that relational databases weren’t really designed to address. So the bottom line on NoSQL is that NoSQL isn’t a technology that’s going to replace relational database systems like SQL Server—except in very specialized instances.
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SharePoint in Pictures

SharePoint in Pictures

The SharePoint Developer Documentation Team has launched a new blog called SharePoint in Pictures with the intention of  providing visual SharePoint developer content on a weekly basis. Illustrations & diagrams make information sticky. This is a great idea that should be extended to other MS products as well.

This diagram from that blog neatly summarizes features present in the different editions of Sharepoint 2010

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Words that leave Google Instant speechless

Words that leave Google Instant speechless

2600 Magazine has compiled a list of objectionable words that Google Instant has blacklisted. Several volunteers have submitted blacklisted words or phrases and the current count of such entries stands at 445.

If you run a website that allows user submissions, you may face the possibility of visitors posting swear words and content that is not family-friendly. To censor user comments, you can take advantage of the above mentioned compilation of black-listed words to validate against. This kind of filtering is a work perpetually in progress.

While on the topic of crowd-sourced content validation, did you know, YouTube has a copyright detection system that can find if a user-submitted uploaded video infringes on copyrights?

Also see:
Crowdsource your supplemental learning with Stack Overflow
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Inside: Google on National Geographic channel

Inside: Google on National Geographic channel

Trivia from the "Inside: Google" program that I got to see last week on National Geographic channel in my part of the world (India) -
  • Google has plans for taking the cloud to the sea. It has a patent for a "water-based data center"
  • Their offices have whiteboards everywhere & a lot of note-taking is done electronically
  • Googlers don't just get free food at office but also services like free laundry & haircuts
  • Many of the popular Google products like Google Earth, Docs (Writely), YouTube, Blogger are acquired
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Thrilled to be renewed as a ASP.NET MVP again

I thank everyone who made it possible for me to win the Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award in the ASP / ASP.NET category again for my community contributions.

As I mentioned earlier, the best part of the award is that you get to hobnob with folks passionate about Microsoft technologies - authors, speakers and other technical community leaders. I was among 1014 MVPs worldwide who were re-awarded during this quarter.

Beginning this October Award quarter, additional technical expertise’ are now being recognized--Windows Phone Development and Windows Azure. Niraj Bhat is the first Windows Azure MVP from India.
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Desktop shortcuts for Google Docs document, Outlook New Mail Message

Whether you need a desktop shortcut to a frequently accessed Google Docs document or a quick way to compose a new Outlook mail message, creating one is similar & simple.

1. Right-click the desktop and choose New | Shortcut.

2. In the Create Shortcut dialog box, enter mailto: as the item to launch for the Outlook new mail message or the URL of the Google Docs document for which you need quick access. Click Next.


3. Specify an appropriate shortcut name then click Finish.


So the next time your boss asks you to email some report when you have closed Outlook while wrapping up for the day, fire up the Outlook New Mail message shortcut instead of opening Outlook explicitly.
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Comparison of Microsoft Data Access Technologies

Comparison of Microsoft Data Access Technologies

Deciding which data access strategy to choose is not always an easy job. Here's a compilation of articles that discuss this topic -
  • This Infosys whitepaper presents a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of ADO.NET, LINQ, Entity Framework & WCF Data Services. There is also a comparison of Entity Framework & NHibernate. Excerpt - ADO.NET offers best performance amongst its peers (LINQ to SQL, Entity Framework, WCF Data Services) 
  • C# guru, John Skeet's post in StackOverlow on the pros and cons of LINQ 
(work in progress..)
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Got tough IE questions? Check  EricLaw's blog

Got tough IE questions? Check EricLaw's blog

Eric Lawrence is a program manager on the Internet Explorer team & best known as the creator of Fiddler. He has also developed several IE addons & browser-related tools.

I have found his blog posts to be insightful. His answers to difficult questions asked on forums are informative & comprehensive. Here's a compilation of his posts that I liked most -
(work in progress...)

Also see:
Fiddling with Fiddler
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Read proxied, mobile-friendly web pages with Google Mobilizer

Read proxied, mobile-friendly web pages with Google Mobilizer

Google Mobilizer is a free service that can:
  • display stripped down mobile-friendly version of web-pages
  • bypass corporate firewalls & allow access to blocked sites
  • optionally hide images so that pages load faster, especially on a slow connection
To get started, click on this Google Mobilizer URL - http://www.google.com/gwt/n

Google Mobilizer will not mobilize a page if the page is already a mobile page, or the website has chosen to opt out of allowing us to "mobilize" their pages.

Auto Google Mobilizer is a Chrome extension automatically load Google "mobilized" pages.

Opera Mini is a mobile browser that fetches all content through a proxy server that reformats & compresses web pages down to about 10% of their original size.

Related:
View clutter-free web pages with TidyRead, Safari Reader
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Simulate Modem speeds with Fiddler

Simulate Modem speeds with Fiddler

In the Pluralsight Silverlight 3 Fundamentals video course, the instructor suggests a tip to test a custom progress bar by mimicking a slow web server on the local computer. This can be done by generating modem speeds with Fiddler, a HTTP proxy, using the menu option Rules > Performance > Simulate Modem speeds. The speed can also be customized. This technique is more convenient than using the System.Threading.Thread.Sleep method to create an artifical delay with code.

Firefox Throttle plug-in also allows you to cap download/upload rates and monitor current bandwidth utilization. This plugin seems to be currently removed from the Mozilla add-ons directory but as per this Firefox support Forum its available on the Mozilla FTP server(direct link to .XPI).

Also see:
FiddlerCap makes HTTP Traffic Capture easier
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